A. Field
The invention relates to providing “ringback” media, e.g., tones, music, speech or other media, to a caller's phone. Ringback is the ringing or other sound that a caller hears while waiting for the called party to answer the phone. As one example, the invention relates to systems and methods for facilitating multiple ringback content providers to inter-work with a ringback media system. The methods of this disclosure are also applicable to providers of other types of media content and allow such providers to inter-work with a media serving system.
B. Related Art
In traditional phone systems, a switch in telephone network plays a ringback tone in the form of call tones to the calling party. The switch may be at caller's end of the call or at the called party's end of the call. The provision of call tones to a calling party is sometimes referred to in the art as “call tones service.”
In this respect, call tones service is different from some other services, such as customized ringers, screensavers, games and applications etc. In these other types of services, the end device (typically a mobile device which includes telephone functionality) downloads a specific type of media/information, and then runs it from the end device. For example, for ringers, the mobile device downloads the particular ringer media from a network based server, and then the user can use the ringer by assigning it to callers or call types.
Call tones service, as noted above, is usually network-based. That is, call tones media is played from a network device (typically, a call tones server) not the end device. The call tones are packetized from a call tones server and transmitted over a communications network to the end device calling party. (Call tones are packetized if Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology is involved. Currently most call tones systems are TDM-based. In a non-VoIP scenario, the call tones would be transmitted the same way as traditional TDM voice signals). In some instances, the call tones server is operated by the third party provider of the call tones content. Regardless of whether the call tones server is operated by a wireless service provider or a third party content provider, downloading of call tones to the end device is unnecessary. However, it does introduce some special complexities. Such complexities can be due to the fact that call tones media may be provided by multiple independent call tones content providers. In other words, the source of the call tones may be a third party which is independent from the entity providing telephone services (e.g., Sprint Nextel). There is a need for the call tones system (i.e., the telecommunication system providing call tones to end devices) to inter-work with multiple content providers that sell the call tones content.
In a current method of operation, the call tones systems usually have a content management interface from where call tones contents are either manually or automatically provisioned. The call tones are supplied by a particular content provider that has contracted with the call tones service provider. Alternatively, the call tones service provider may choose to perform the content management function itself. Under this method, the call tones users usually access a call tones catalog and make purchases of call tones content via an interactive interfaces provided by the call tones system. Such interface may take the form of a web interface, interactive voice response unit (IVR), or via short message service (SMS) or wireless application protocol (WAP) messaging.
The current approaches have several limitations. In the first scenario of a contracted call tones content provider, the call tones contents are statically provisioned by the content providers. In the second scenario, where the call tones system provides a catalog, the call tones users are restricted to access the call tones catalog and make purchases from the web/WAP/IVR/SMS interfaces provided by the service provider. The limitations restrict the call tones users to the available contents set by the service provider, and limit call tones browsing and purchasing to be in the service provider's domain.
The present disclosure provides a much more flexible and extensible approach to providing call tones services for calling parties, and allows many more call tones to be available to the user. The disclosure is also applicable other media that can be hosted on a network for mobile devices, including ringers, screen savers and games.